


More Like Rivals

by Bentclaw



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5552981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bentclaw/pseuds/Bentclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin and Haru have spent most of their lives figuring out their relationship, and they haven't gone unobserved. Written for the 2015 Christmas exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Like Rivals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellerean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellerean/gifts).



> I signed up as a pinch hitter for this exchange, and when I saw this prompt I fell in love with it instantly. You asked for another character's perspective on Rin and Haru's relationship, and I adore that sort of thing. I wanted to use the point of view of a character who wouldn't be the most obvious choice for the prompt, so I picked Nagisa. I did my best to do it justice, although I may have focused too much on pre-anime events. I can't help it, the thought of Rin and Haru as adorable little kids sustains my life force. 
> 
> Merry (slightly late) Christmas!

When Rin Matsuoka stood up in front of the assembled members of the Iwatobi Swim Club to introduce himself, Nagisa wasn’t really paying attention.

It wasn’t that he didn’t think it was interesting that they had a new member, and it wasn’t like it was a bad introduction. It was just that he was a little bit distracted that day. He had beaten his previous best time in breaststroke the day before, and he was eager to get in the pool and see if he could do it again.  

Matsuoka didn’t catch his attention until a minute or two later, when he pulled away from the crowd of people welcoming him to the swim club and ran after Haruka Nanase. That was unusual, because hardly anybody tried to talk to Nanase. He wasn’t inclined to having conversations with other people, and just wanted to focus on swimming. Nagisa liked him though, Nanase was cool and would always time him if he asked. He was being his usual self, frowning and letting Tachibana do all the talking and trying to ignore Matsuoka, but Matsuoka didn’t seem to notice. He was smiling and laughing while he talked, and Nagisa decided he liked him already.

“Are you his friend?” He asked Matsuoka later on, stopping him at the end of a lap.

“Not really,” Matsuoka replied. “We’re more like rivals.”

Nagisa played along, although he was sure that it wasn’t quite true. Matsuoka had said _we’re rivals_ in the same tone of voice that someone might use to say _I’m getting a bicycle for my birthday._ Like it was something he really wanted, but was only pretending to be sure about.

Over the course of that day’s practice, Nagisa attempted to learn everything he could about Matsuoka. He knew he was being annoying, and he could tell that Matsuoka was getting impatient with him, but he knew from years of practice with his older sisters that annoying someone was the best way to get them to be honest. Matsuoka probably had a younger sibling or two himself, because he put up with it. By the end of practice, Nagisa had learned that Matsuoka was good at pretty much everything, or at least he claimed to be. He was very competitive, but when he pulled Nagisa over to watch him race Nanase he didn’t get upset at all about losing.

Actually, he’d looked excited when Nagisa followed Nanase away from the pool.

Nanase seemed unhappy, which didn’t make any sense to Nagisa since he’d won. He tried to cheer him up by talking about how great the race had been, but that just worsened Nanase’s mood. Maybe he didn’t want to be Matsuoka’s rival after all.

Matsuoka kept trying though, and Nanase slowly started to come around.

 -----

After Haru agreed to be part of their relay team, the group fell into a comfortable routine. Running to and from practice every day, practicing dives and settling into their individual roles on the team. It was _fun_ , and Nagisa even enjoyed the days where they were sloppy and their times didn’t improve.

Rin ended almost every practice by challenging Haru to a race. Almost every practice, Haru would point out that Rin was swimming Butterfly in the relay so he should be focusing on that. He usually said that while already climbing onto the starting block, which Nagisa thought lessened the impact of it a bit. He obviously liked to race Rin, or he wouldn’t do it.  

Yet there he was, frowning and turning his head when Rin smiled at him, and complaining whenever Rin challenged him to races. Nagisa couldn’t even say it was just how Haru was, because he wasn’t openly unfriendly to him or Makoto. He could tell that Haru didn’t actually mean any of it, because he didn’t make any real effort to get away from Rin. In fact, if Rin was absent, Nagisa could usually see Haru quietly looking around for him long before Makoto said anything.

One day when the next meet was still a few weeks away, Rin announced that he had to leave practice early. His grandmother was coming to pick him up, and then they were going to meet his mother and sister. It was his mother’s birthday, so they were going out to celebrate. Nagisa could see Haru steadfastly pretending not to be disappointed that Rin wouldn’t have time to race him, and couldn’t resist frowning exaggeratedly at him in a mockery of his serious face as he climbed out of the pool to use the bathroom.

When he emerged shivering back onto the pool deck, his first impulse was to scamper back to the water where it was warm. He stopped himself because Coach Sasabe was talking to an old woman Nagisa had never seen before, and this had to be Rin’s grandmother. Rin either hadn’t seen her or was trying to stretch out his pool time as long as possible, because he had just started another lap.

Nagisa didn’t want to eavesdrop. He was just curious about Rin’s family. If he overheard what the adults were talking about while he was hanging back and trying to decide if he should introduce himself, that wasn’t his fault.

“There he is over there,” Coach Sasabe said, pointing. “Swimming with his friends, as usual.”

Rin’s grandmother scrutinized the lane carefully before smiling. “It’s good to see he’s settled in well.”

“Yeah, he’s really getting along well with those guys.” Coach Sasabe grinned. “They’re all swimming a relay together in the next meet, but I’m sure you know that. Rin is very excited.”

“He talks about it every day,” Rin’s grandmother said. Her mouth twitched a little, like she found it funny. “Which one is Nanase?” she asked, peering at the pool again.

“The one with black hair, on the end of the lane there,” Coach Sasabe told her. “Rin’s really attached to him, isn’t he?”

Rin’s grandmother nodded. “All he could talk about when he moved in with me was swimming with Nanase. It was so sudden that we were all a little bit concerned.”

Nagisa inched closer, abandoning all pretenses in order to listen in more effectively.

Coach Sasabe scratched at his beard. “I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” he said. “It’s pretty common for young boys at their age to get little crushes on each other. Practice for the real thing, you know?” He laughed.

Nagisa’s eyes widened and he turned to stare at his friends in the pool. Coach Sasabe thought Rin had a crush on Haru? He hadn’t thought of that as a possibility, but it would explain a few things. Rin was always trying to get Haru’s attention more than anyone else’s. He could see it from where he was standing, even. Rin had finished his lap and was hanging over the lane lines, reaching over to pat Haru’s shoulder while he talked and laughing when Haru looked away.

Nagisa hurried back to the pool so the adults wouldn’t notice him spying. “You’re not supposed to pull the lane lines down!”

“I know,” Rin said, frowning. He let go of the lane line and grabbed onto the pool wall.

“I think your grandma’s here,” Nagisa told him.

Rin looked up. “Yeah, that’s her,” he said. “I wonder what she’s doing in here? I told her to wait in the lobby and I’d come out at…” he glanced at the clock on the far wall. “Whoops. Gotta go, keep practicing everyone!”

He climbed out of the pool quickly, almost slipping in his hurry. Before he left to join his grandmother, he turned around and announced “I’ll race you next time Haru, so you’d better be ready!”

Before Haru could answer him, Rin dashed away grinning. Coach Sasabe’s subsequent bellow of _“No running by the pool, Matsuoka!”_ made everyone stare, but Nagisa thought he saw Haru smile a little before pushing off the wall for another lap. Maybe that meant he liked Rin back.

Nagisa bounced up and down in the water excitedly. It would be so nice if they liked each other! Haru and Rin were both such great teammates, he wanted them to be happy.

But then Rin went to Australia, and it was a long time before Nagisa saw either of them happy again.

 -----

During middle school, Haru and Makoto’s attendance at the swim club faltered before finally dropping off entirely. Nagisa tried not to let it get to him. They had a team at their new school after all, and homework in middle school was supposed to be harder than elementary school work. They probably didn’t have time to swim even more once school was out.

Nagisa wrote to Rin a few times, but Rin only wrote back once. Eventually, he gave up.

When he saw them all again a few years later, he was astonished by how little had changed. Makoto was the same as ever, and Haru was still withdrawn and obsessed with water. Nagisa didn’t think he had changed much either. Rin, on the other hand, seemed completely different. He was tense and angry and from the sound of it, he was swimming only for the purpose of winning. That was so unlike the Rin that Nagisa had known in elementary school that he know something very serious must have gone wrong while he was in Australia.

In retrospect, the first sign that something was wrong had been the fact that Haru had quit competitive swimming. Nagisa had been surprised by that, but not as much as he should have been. Haru was still spending a majority of his free time in the water, so it hadn’t occurred to him to worry. Not until Rin followed them to the old swim club, not until he and Haru had gotten so absorbed in a silent confrontation that they’d almost jumped into an empty pool.

Just what had happened?

Over the next few months, Nagisa watched the situation escalate. Every time they ran into Rin somewhere, Haru was tense for hours afterward. He didn’t like to talk about it, but would fixate on anything that had to do with Rin. He _missed_ Rin, more than any of them. It radiated off him in waves whenever something happened to remind him of it. Nagisa tried to make sure that didn’t happen often, it brought down the mood of the whole group. They had to do something about this, and quick.

He wasn’t sure how to help, though. Haru was willing to make up with Rin, but would never make the first move. Rin was at Samezuka, fully absorbed in training. As he began to piece together the specifics of the situation it became clear that Rin missed Haru too, but at that point he was far too set on his ideas about leaving the past behind to ever admit it.

It didn’t look good. The tension was building up so fast that Nagisa was sure someone had to snap soon.  

In the end, it was Rin who snapped. Nagisa knew they’d hit a breaking point the second Haru got up from his seat and ran out of the pool area after him.

And of course it was Haru who found Rin, after a frantic search. When the rest of them caught up, it was already over. They were on the ground, and the dirt around them was scuffed up like there’d been a fight. Rin was crying, and Haru was calmer than he’d been in a long time. Nagisa couldn’t even be upset that he missed the dramatic conclusion, because they had Rin back.

Rin attached himself to Haru’s side after the relay, to the point that Haru had to physically pry him off so he could take a shower. Even then, Rin hovered around the shower stall the whole time Haru was inside, like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to be there. Nagisa made a point of smiling at him a lot, to help him feel welcome. Haru was happy, so the rest of the team was happy. If Rin could understand that, he wouldn’t feel so anxious.

 -----

When Rin took Haru off to Australia, Nagisa spent the whole time wondering what they were up to. Everyone else was hoping that the trip would help Haru feel better, but Nagisa wasn’t worried. Of course it would help. Haru always felt better when Rin was with him. He just needed to relax, and a vacation was the perfect thing for that. Mainly, Nagisa was impressed. Rin’s tactics for getting Haru’s attention had remained largely unchanged since elementary school, but a surprise trip to another country was really something else.

“He must have something big planned, don’t you think?” He asked Rei, who sighed and looked up from the worksheet he was correcting.

“I came over to help you with your homework,” he answered, “not to gossip.”

“Aren’t you even a little bit curious?” Nagisa pressed.

“Not at all,” Rei answered. “I’m sure that they’ll tell us all about it when they get back. Here, this page is corrected. Read it and fix your mistakes.”

Nagisa groaned and took the worksheet back.

Whatever Rin had been planning had worked perfectly. Haru came back to them smiling and stable, and with his motivation returned to him.  In his usual style, he told them about the trip briefly, detailing only the most important things. He had seen a lot of wonderful things, and he had found a dream for himself, and it was all thanks to Rin.

Nagisa was still itching to find out what they’d seen, what Australia was like, what it was like for Haru to go traveling with Rin, but Rei and Makoto made him stop asking questions. Haru had just gotten home, he was tired, he needed to relax.

They went out to dinner that evening, and it was incredible how much it felt like a weight had been lifted off the shoulders of the whole team. Haru was the keystone of the group, and his stress had been keenly felt by everyone. With it gone, they were swept up in his newfound excitement for the future. Haru kept staring off into space during dinner with a small smile on his face, and Nagisa knew he was thinking of Rin.

Those two had a bright future ahead of them, and he couldn’t wait to see them meet it.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there we go. Ideally I think something like this should be a lot longer, but I wanted to make sure it got posted as quickly as possible for the event. I hope you like it! =)


End file.
